Sixty Seven Years
by The Sound Of Thunder
Summary: He sometimes wonders if thats why he loved her. Loves her. After all, she was the first person he loved. The only person he ever truly loved. NXT


**I'm pretty new to writing the angst genre, I've written a grand total of one angsty story in the past, which I deleted because I wasn't happy with it. Anyway here goes, please leave a review telling me what you thought. Enjoy -: (hopefully!)**

* * *

He grips the cool railing with his wrinkled, callused hands. The metal is smooth, and cold beneath his milky white skin, almost unbearably cold.

The railing glistens, as the light from the street lamps below hit the frost particles clinging to the grey metal.

He looks up. Konoha, his home, is spread out beneath him ,stretching as far as his pale, pale eyes can see. The mass of lights merge and mingle together to create the illusion of warmth. He grips the railing tighter.

His breath comes in white clouds. Down in the street, traditional New Years lanterns are strung across the width of the street, zig zagging from one building to the next, until the street finally ends and the next one is more elaborately decorated.

* * *

In the center of Konoha, traditional lanterns have been replaced in favor of Western decorations. Much prettier to look at, and much more electric. She wouldn't have agreed. She loved simple.

He sometimes wonders if thats why he loved her. _Loves _her. After all, she was the first person he cared about. The only person he ever truly loved.

She was easy to understand, and yet so intricate and puzzling the same time.

She could read him like a book.

He was always her book. Always. Even after all these years.

He slowly releases his right hand from its death grip on the railing, and flips it over . The moonlight is clear and cool tonight, its glow clearly captures the long silver scar that spans the length of his palm.

He can picture that night so clearly...

* * *

_She spins and twirls through the air gracefully, performing the complicated acrobatics that are so old to him, but never cease to amaze him._

_A barrage of weapons rain down on their enemies. The choked screams and whimpers of the impaled and dying echo across the makeshift battle-ground._

_They lay where they fell. But not her. He would never let that happen to her._

_Three masked nin lunge at him simultaneously, forming hand seals for an unknown jutsu._

"_Kaiten!" He loses sight of her , only for a second._

_That is all it takes._

* * *

He clenches his fist, fighting back the very un-characteristic urge to scream or cry out in frustration, sorrow and anger. Frustration at himself for not being able to save her. Frustration at the half life he has lead since that moment. Sorrow for losing her. Sorrow that is razor sharp. Its jagged edges slice down him and ruthlessly tears apart his insides. Anger at the ones for taking her, so much anger. But even more anger at himself.

* * *

_He comes out of the spin, and sees her fall from the sky, mid Sōryū Tensakai._

_A slash to the jugular. He makes quick work of the surviving shinobi, who has somehow managed to survive their own rebounding attack._

_Its seems as if he is trapped inside an genjutsu as he runs toward her, begging, praying that she is okay._

_In his unusual haste, he trips and falls, slicing his palm open on a discarded katana of hers. He barely feels it, but later it will bring him hours and hours of torment._

_She lays there, the only movement being her irregular, shallow breathing. The seven poison senbon protruding from her neck make him sick to his stomach._

_Her dark, chocolaty hair has fallen across her face._

_He cups her cheek,and ever so gently brushes the strands away._

"_No..." He murmurs . They need so much more time together. They are both just seventeen. Fate is cruel._

_Her deep brown eyes open, and they are dull and unfocused, not sparkling with mirth like the should be. Her hands desperately grasp at him, pulling him down towards her._

_Her dry, cracked lips brush his earlobe._

"_Neji..."_

_And then she is gone._

_The faint chimes signaling the New Year, lost to her dead ears._

* * *

_He doesn't cry for her. Shinobi's aren't allowed to show emotion._

* * *

_He returns to Konohagakure with her limp body in his arms._

* * *

_He sits solemn and stoic throughout her funeral. No-one knows he is almost gone inside._

* * *

_A day passes, then a week and a month. His life becomes mechanical. _

* * *

_He gives into the arranged marriage his clan has been pushing for for months. His wife is carefully selected._

* * *

_Six months pass. She becomes pregnant with his first child, a girl. Another year passes in which he fathers a child, this time a boy._

* * *

_He goes on more and more missions, he has a 98 percent success rate. His methods are precise and deadly. Methods of a ruthless assassin with nothing to lose. He joins ANBU. _

* * *

_The years pass, like the pages of an almost empty journal being turned in which only the first few pages are filled._

* * *

_Eighteen years have passed. He attends his daughters wedding. It is not an arranged one, he would not allow for that. He is ashamed to say he does not love his daughter, or his son, or his wife. He does not love anyone but her. However, he still wants his daughter to be happy. Happier than him._

* * *

_Two more years pass and he has his first grandchild. He holds the small thing in his arms, and feels nothing._

* * *

_He is an empty husk. Nothing._

* * *

The clocks strike twelve all over Konoha, and the chimes ring our and echo over the village, signaling the entrance of the new year.

A new year. This is the only time of year he feels anything.

His heart tightens, and constricts. The lump in his throat that is always there, and always agony, burns and becomes almost unbearable. The corners of his eyes burn, and two solitary tears find their way down his aged, but still handsome face.

He will live through this new year, just like all the ones before it.

Live, but not love.

It has been sixty seven years exactly since that night.

**As I said, I'm really inexperienced at the whole angst genre, so I'm hoping to get better, please leave me a review and tell me what you think!**


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